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26. The Campaign for Marriage Equality: A Dissenting View
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229 k 26 The Cam paign for Mar riage Equal ity A Dis sent ing View In the twenty-first cen tury, the ex clu sion of same-sex cou ples from the legal right to marry has eclipsed all other gay and les bian is sues. It makes head lines reg u larly, fig ures in major ways in electo ral pol i tics, and calls forth emo tional ap peals for equal ity. More than any other LGBT issue, it has elic ited the en thu sias tic sup port of lib eral and pro gres sive hetero sex u als and of younger adults across the po lit i cal spec trum. From the be gin ning of the cam paign for mar riage equal ity, I have had deep res er va tions about it. It is not that I am against mar riage equal ity, that I think the right to legal mar riage should be de nied. But the way the cam paign has evolved, the rhet o ric and ar gu ments that sup port ers often em ploy, and the im pact that pri o ri tiz ing mar riage has had on other press ing is sues have all deeply dis turbed me. This essay, which grows out of a num ber of talks and two ear lier shorter pieces, at tempts to pull all my con cerns to gether. k This essay ex pands upon two ear lier es says: “The Mar riage Fight Is Set ting Us Back,” Gay and Les bian Re view World wide 13, no. 6 (No vem ber–De cem ber 2006): 10–11, and “Will the Courts Set Us Free?: Re flec tions on the Cam paign for Same-Sex Mar riage,” in The Pol i tics of Same-Sex Mar riage, ed. Craig Rim mer man and Clyde Wil cox (Chi cago: Uni ver sity of Chi cago Press, 2007), 39–64. Part IV: History’s Lessons 230 May 1993. The Ha waii State Su preme Court in structed one of its trial judges to re con sider a case in volv ing same-sex mar riage. Call ing mar riage “a basic civil right,” the jus tices sug gested that the pro hi bi tion against is su ing li censes to same-sex cou ples vi o lated state con sti tu tional bans against gender-based dis crim i na tion. William Ru bin stein, at that time the di rec tor of the American Civil Lib er ties Union’s gay rights pro ject, called the rul ing “a major break through.”1 This was the first time in US his tory that a court came even re motely close to ap prov ing “gay mar riages,” and it cracked open a na tion wide de bate that, two decades later, in 2013, con tin ues. De spite many twists, turns, and re ver sals, one can rea son ably draw a line con nect ing this ju di cial in struc tion in Ha waii to the first same-sex mar riages in Mas sa chu setts, in May 2004, the raft of pro hi bi tion ist meas ures that graced many state bal lots that No vem ber, the bat tle over Prop o si tion 8 in Cal i for nia in 2008, Pres i dent Ba rack Obama’s endorse ment of mar riage for same-sex cou ples in 2012, and, most re cent, two Su preme Court de ci sions that sup ported mar riage equal ity. By any logic, the Ha waii de ci sion ought to have thrilled me. I study so cial move ments. I think daily about col lec tive ef forts to achieve jus tice and about how dis en fran chised groups act to re dress their grie vances. In par tic u lar, I have stud ied the gay and les bian move ment for al most four decades and at many points along the way have been not merely an ob server but an ac tive par tic i pant in the cause. What could be more ex hil ar at ing than to wit ness his tory being made, to watch a cam paign de velop for some thing as fun da men tal as mar riage? In stead, from the mo ment that the Ha waii courts put the mar riage issue...